Steve MccClure

The Adam Ondra Blitz

Picture by Keith Sharples

Adam Ondra came to Britain!  A very big deal indeed. Adam is the best sport climber in the world, no questions asked. Chris Sharma, who has done a bit of climbing, said he was totally blown away by Ondra’s performance! He went direct to Malham and directly to try some of my routes that have laid untouched for years…

I went up to Malham cove to catch up with him, its been two years since I last climbed with him and I was keen to see how he was doing. But I already knew how good he’d become. Al Austin texted me on the way to say “at least you’ll know how it feels to be a punter at the crag now”. Good style, just turning up and going climbing, why should people know his agenda? I guess we assume that with his status there will be some kind of press release announcing his movements and selling tickets for the display. But no: Just him and a mate, over for a week. No team of photographers, no film crew or helicopters. I arrived at the crag and there they were, just another team trying their routes.

Adam climbed a lot of stuff in a week, the most anyone has ever climbed by a large amount. It sounds impossible almost, but then we remember he is just at that new level, away up there by himself, a good notch above anyone else really. It was exciting for me as seem to have been operating in a vacuum for years putting up new routes with no one to gauge them with. You never know their real difficulty and you always stand to be knocked down The British climbing public are very fast to throw mud, and though grades are not that critical to me, having everything down graded would have led to a real beating!!

But it ended up being perfect, Adam nailed a load of stuff and commented that though our grades were stiff they were not super hard, so that helps put a sock in all the Brits that think they are so good with their super hard grades that would be harder than any of Europe. He also found Overshadow hard and didn’t manage a repeat, so I wasn’t being a bumbly. But he did do Northern Lights and North Star confirming quality and grade. His visit was almost like me climbing the routes again, a confirmation perhaps being just as important than the actual first ascent. And if anyone knows his stuff it’s certainly Ondra!!

May 10, 2010 10:14 AM

Here comes summer

Climbing on Holyhead Mountain (E4) photo - Neil Foster.

About time too! The winter was a long one, cold, possibly good for friction, but not when covered with snow or for the unmotivated who has been there too many times before. Occasional trips to the Plantation weren’t doing it for me and I pressed on and booked in work with hopes for the spring. And here it is, all in a bit of a rush in the end. What seems like yesterday I was away in Scotland over Easter, it was constantly raining and cold and dark and windy, then two days later I was in Wales in the middle of summer!

Holyhead Mountain, hardly the most inspiring venue in Wales, but a compromise for all team members guaranteeing good trad and good sun. Out of the wind, belaying at the top of the cliff in just T shirt with shoes cast aside was a joy, soaking up the rays like memories from a past life. Taking in the rope then watching as Rab popped over the edge below me rattling with doubtfully placed equipment, my skills rusty with under use.  E3’s and E4’s were fine for now, and just right for the sun and the scene.

And it gave time to hit the Cave on the way home. After yesterday I was sore, a few hours on a long link in here is like a complete session, then it was downstairs for routes and Melancholy for a quick tick. Today was the only time in history where the weather was worse at Llandudno than in Llanberis! We watched as the thermometer dropped from 17 to 11, and as the sun rounded the corner and the wind howled in. Huddling in the back of the cave, duvet jackets essential, winter was back! Horary, conditions were awesome, pity my condition was not!

April 20, 2010 07:36 AM

skymasters 2010

I used to compete internationally, for Britain on the British Lead Team. It was fun, but not for me, I’m an outdoor climber, not a competitor. Maybe I just can’t cope with the stress and rise to the challenge; not good enough. It’s a skill I lack, staying cool under pressure, being able to perform 100% right there and then. Looking down from the viewpoint on the climbers about to race head to head in the final of Skymasters 2010 it made me shiver, what was in their heads? What happened next, win or lose, was probably my fault as I set the routes.

Lead climbing competitions are basically dull for the audience: someone comes out, inches their way up the wall until getting stuck and shaking out forever like a piece of washing hanging from a line hoping to get stronger until eventually sagging onto the rope. Skymasters is different, 2 competitors race head to head on mirror image routes over spectacular horizontal terrain. It’s very easy to see who is winning and the race only takes between 1.5 and 3 minutes. For the spectator it’s awesome, and that’s why this was the third year of the event. Even the climbers love it.

But I’m glad to be just the setter! When speed is everything and a human being can blast this route in less than a minute and a half the tiniest of mistakes count, a poor clip, the rope round the leg, wrong handed on a hold; game over! It has to be perfect and there is no time to think. The men’s final was amazing, a blaze of precise movement right to the end with only a photo to split the result! Awesome. But I’ll stick with the setting!

Full results at
http://www.ukclimbing.com/news/item.php?id=52675

March 31, 2010 01:06 PM

Project Status

I’ve been here before….

But it still feels like a very long way off! That feeling you get when you first try something really hard. It’s alien to most climbers, as they don’t often try hard stuff relative to them. I’m talking about routes where you can’t even do the moves, where success is measured in tens of days or even years. Not something that was desperate but you’ll probably do next go.

Why would anyone want to go there, to devote such time to a single set of moves? I used to wonder, but then found it complimented the other styles, the on-sight or ground up. But there were other attractions, in particular the relationship, like any improving and maturing with time, changing and adapting and compromising. I’ve had a few of these relationships, and so far I’ve not had my fingers burned, but it will happen eventually. But when it does I won’t be depressed, as the biggest lesson I’ve learned is that a relationship cannot be rushed, it needs time to progress, and the journey is everything.

So here I am again. Malham Cove has taken much of me but given me more. I’m on a new line. It looks desperate, just a single day so far and I couldn’t do some of the moves. These were a long way up too, after absolutely no rest where fatigue will be maxed out. Good news. This looks like a solid relationship, this isn’t a quick fling over in a flash, unmemorable and without meaning. I’m looking for the line between possible and not, for me you understand. I think I found it before and I’d like to balance on it again. Time will tell!

March 14, 2010 07:31 AM

Slovenian winter

Where is everybody?? This is Misja Pec, world class crag, one of the top five sport cliffs in the world. And yet there is no one here. OK, its 3 degrees and snowing. But the rock is dry, and not surprisingly, not sweaty!
I came here 5 years ago and swore I’d be back within months, but other things came along and the place slipped off my radar like it has for so many. Back in the mid 90’s, mention Misja Pec, or Osp to anyone worth their quickdraws and for sure they’d know what you were talking about. Now people think you have pronounced something wrongly. It was as good as I remembered, made even better being able to stay at the house of world famous Silvo Karo with his life saving log burner. Myself, Kath Schirrmacher, Dan ‘sky’ Walker and Rab ‘president’ Carrington was the duvet clad team.
Onsighting was a finger-numbing experience. Red-pointing seemed like a soft option and I was somehow conned into trying a relatively new route I knew I couldn’t do as it was too hard.
Tomas Mrazek opened Xaxid hostel, 9a+. First 20 meters are around 8c+/9a to a lower-off. Then, a mediocre rest close to the end of the first pitch and a further 8c+. Adam ondra repeated it and said it might be only hard 9a. So fairly hard really.
It seemed to suit me, except the final bulge that was reachy, but also soaking, and not only soaking, but frozen! So I went for the pressure free effort, knowing it was hopeless, though gaining hope with every meter, until the inevitable ping off backwards with sopping hands from the final move of a 45metre route! Still, a holiday tick of 8c+/9a isn’t so bad, and a reason to go back—-the great sledging!

February 17, 2010 10:25 PM

Heart Warming

Malham cove in January. Pushing it! A 7.15am start had me cycling downhill to get picked up in the dark and minus three temperatures. Our plan seemed fairly optimistic, and more so walking in with a biting wind blasting into our face freezing hat covered ears. But as is so often the case at the cove the wind dropped to zero, a curse in the summer, but now a blessing. By 2am it was scorching, almost too hot to climb. But never too hot in January. No one would dare moan, even the most British of us!

However I was there for more than climbing. Primary objective was exploration – new route potential. I need something to get stuck into and the cove has already been generous to me, offering up her prime lines. I had a vague plan and dropping in from above a vague line of holds pointed the way; just enough, maybe, maybe not! Next visit will tell all.

February 10, 2010 11:56 AM

Ice Climbing In The Peaks

A 7.30am start. We were off down the dale. Turning from the main road towards RavenTor it was just like normal, except now the road was covered with snow and outside was below freezing! Some people apparently had been climbing recently at the Tor, but for me it could wait till later, much later. Today wasn’t about small crimps and polished footholds, it was about hanging on axes and a winter experience.

OK, so its hardly The Alps, or even Scotland, and today I pined for those places even more, but for something half hour from my house this was pretty good! 15 minutes slog through knee deep snow brought us to the abandoned quarry with vertical walls plastered with snow and streaked with ice. My crampons showed their face after many years hiding in the attic and my cold fingers fumbled with the unfamiliarity of it all. Staring up at frozen pathways my excitement grew, fears gladly eliminated by the trees that kindly grew near the edge and happily accepted a toprope.

We climbed four routes, some tricky and some desperate. One involved dry tooling up an overhanging start, hooking on tiny edges while expecting the pick to pop at any moment. The ice above was excellent and I marvelled at the architecture; the appearance of this ice fall so similar to the tufa lines of Europe, except those were formed over thousands of years and this was formed in days, and could disappear over night! Moving over it was similar, reading the material but using it in different ways. Everything was a challenge, physically and mentally. I’m sure as hell glad I wasn’t leading and placing what sketchy gear could be scratched out. But here, for me it didn’t matter. I have no clue how ‘hard’ they were. Grades were irrelevant. It was just great to be a bumbly!

January 13, 2010 10:52 AM

Skiing In The Peak

Driving back after the most amazing winters day in the Peak we passed a lone boulderer, suited up in expedition down jackets and hats, bracing against the frozen wind and carting an enormous pad on his back. Where he was off to I couldn’t imagine, the search for those pristine conditions climbing above a snow cushioned landing. Climbing I love, maybe I am feeble but sometimes it’s just too hard!

We’d been skiing, a far more sensible option. Neil Bently was up for it, and I knew this meant trouble as there are no ski lifts in the peak, going up was on foot, wading through snow, and Neil is famously fit. To make things worse we were joined by Andy Cave, mountain guide and expert in legging it up hills. A tough day was guaranteed, but the scenery was amazing, nearly good enough to forget the exertion.

The way down the North side of Lose Hill looked pretty intimating, especially to one who hasn’t donned skis for 6 years. I limped down the steep start and then started to get into the foot deep powder but by the end I was feeling like a beginner again with no ability to turn. Reaching the bottom I clicked out of my bindings only for the front half of my plastic ski boot to fall off, totally snapped in half! After the hike back up to the summit I knew my return to the car would be shaky, only the binding holding my two bits of boot together. Shaky it was, for the first two minutes till I fell over and my boot exploded into about 20 bits. Better here than after being heli-dropped into some remote nowhere I guess. No complaints. This may not be The Alps but days like these don’t come much better.

January 08, 2010 09:33 PM

From One Extreme to another.

Not an extreme route, not one E1 and on to the next. No, just a few days in my life that were funny. I was at the Castle climbing wall’s party at the weekend. It was pretty awesome. The wall turned into a nightclub with beer flowing freely and tunes of the trance variety, just as I like it. We made some sketchy shapes till after two then bailed to Audrey Seguy’s pad for a doss on the floor. Earlier in the night I’d given a talk which seemed to go well, I gave away a bunch of posters afterwards, and dumping them on the desk was pretty amazed to see a queue of about 70 people all wanting the poster ruined by me writing my name on it. I’m not the signature type really but did my best and wondered what it must be like to be a proper star.

Anyway I had to be asleep by three really, as I had to be up to continue route setting back at The Reeboc Gym where I’d been the day before. I had to be there early as there was lots to do. Today’s main job was hold cleaning, scrubbing each of the 400 holds individually under a cold tap. My hangover helped, I was glad of it for once, something to think about other than the boredom of being a scrubber. I worked till 10pm then slept in a cupboard so I could be up at 5am to start again. The staff there thought I was mad. One extreme to another maybe? Hardly, it’s just what we do, as climbers, its just stuff, and I wouldn’t have it any other way! 36 hours of work in 3 days meant I was out sledging in the snow this morning while everbody else was at work!

December 18, 2009 12:24 PM

Tenerife

Above – Walter on one of the many excellent problems at Arico

For a few years I’ve managed to squeeze in a week right at the end of the year to somewhere nice with amazing climbing. This year it was not to be. A two and a half week coaching trip with Kath Schirrmacher to Turkey fell far too late in the year for me to even suggest to my family that another 10 days away in Spain would be a fair request! But I still wanted to go away, what better way to spend the money I had just earned? It had to be hot, I wasn’t looking for climbing conditions; Spain wouldn’t do and Asia was too far. Tenerife fitted the bill! 

I’d seen an article years ago in OTE about the climbing in Tenerife. It looked awesome, but everyone seemed to forget about it. However, I sneaked my boots and harness in the bag along with the bucket and spade in the hope of some volcanic action (the climbing type, as opposed to an eruption). Aiming straight for the climbers ‘tourist information’ i.e. the climbing shop I met up with Walter, man of much information. I was granted a morning pass from the family and before I knew it I was tied on below an amazing red wall dotted with tiny chalk marks showing the way.

The routes are awesome, and the bouldering is world class too. It isn’t Santa Linya and it isn’t Fontainbleau, but it’s good for sure. What is doesn’t have in volume it does make up for in many other areas. You might not want to come here for a hardcore two weeks of climbing if you are cranking 8a, but if you are after the whole package then this is it! The beaches are all over and pretty good, the cycling is world class, road or off, the walking is mind blowing (the volcano has a summit of 3718m!), the surf is excellent and in winter the temperature is what you’d pray for in summer in Britain. For a winter trip with loads of action I’m struggling to think of a better place. For climbing the temperatures are fine too, cool and fresh in the morning with enough bite in the rock to keep any gritmaster smiling! Overall I was very impressed. I reckon I will be back. Check out the next CLIMB magazine for a more detailed article.

December 04, 2009 11:16 PM

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